Hydrogen – Fuel Cell Technology, Infrastructure

Hydrogen Fuel Station Opens at W. Va. Airport

August 24, 2009
• by Staff

CHARLESTON, WV --- A new hydrogen fuel production and dispensing station opened at Yeager Airport in Charleston on Aug. 17, officials told the Charleston Gazette.

The station is a joint project of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory and Yeager Airport. It's considered a small-scale demonstration project that can accommodate just a few vehicles each day.

In exchange for donating the land for the new fueling station, the airport is getting three hydrogen-powered vehicles from the Department of Energy. The airport has also agreed to buy a hydrogen-powered pickup truck previously used in a demonstration project in Arizona.

Charleston's new hydrogen station will serve as a model for an upcoming facility planned for West Virginia in Morgantown.

"Having these stations in Charleston and Morgantown creates a corridor allowing hydrogen-powered vehicles to travel between the two cities," explained David Haberman, president of the Mountain States Hydrogen Business Council. A third hydrogen fuel station is expected to be built in Pittsburgh, he added, which would extend the corridor into southwest Pennsylvania.

Hawaii's distributor of Toyota, Lexus, and Subaru vehicles has opened the state's first publicly accessible hydrogen fueling station and later this month will begin leasing the Mirai fuel cell vehicle, Toyota has announced.

Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz Vans division showed off a concept Sprinter that delivers power from a hydrogen fuel cell stack to an electric motor that could achieve an effective range of 500 kilometers (310 miles). Executives showed the vehicle to journalists in Hamburg, Germany, on July 3.